Tolstoy in later life still spinning stories.
LOOK AROUND YOU
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All violence consists in some people forcing others, under threat of suffering or death, to do what they do not want to do.
In all history there is no war which was not hatched by the governments, the governments alone, independent of the interests of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when successful.
Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.
In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.
All violence consists in some people forcing others, under threat of suffering or death, to do what they do not want to do.
In all history there is no war which was not hatched by the governments, the governments alone, independent of the interests of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when successful.
Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.
In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.
Leo Tolstoy
7 comments:
"Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.
In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you."
...Amen.
Hatched by governments? 1916 was hatched by a bunch of lunatics who tried to set up a government and we have been trying to do so since with little success.
And Change yourself? Why?
I like me!
Not so sure about the government bit I think people will always fight each other uinfortunately, starting with their neighbours, over land and pocessions and stuff. Just take a look at the world.
Elf Girl, with the wisdom of years I realise that there is very little we can change about ourselves. Most of what made us what we are happened when we were children.
But all is not lost, because I have also discovered that there is a lover and a healer who if we spend time with Him very graciously
heals and brings change in us.
Antoin: I agree that we are little able to change ourselves of our own power, and I thank God that He is able to shape hearts and reinvent lives. However, I still agree with the quote, because changed individuals (in my view, changed by God) are the only real way to change the world. "The world" after all, is only another way of saying "the earth in its present state". :)
There is the old saying, in relation to the raising of Lazarus...if we roll back the stone God will raise the dead ! The desire to change ourselves is the prime mover and then to take the neccessary 'faith' steps towards the Master.
Elf Girl perhaps unknowingly you affirm the point that while experience is a byproduct of time, wisdom is by its very natue a gift, a gift you appear to have in abundance.
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